A blue Ford Fiesta holding funeral clothes and a laptop of family photos was taken from the Great Danes hotel car park on 30 Sep. Call 01622 604100.
A car holding clothes for a funeral and a laptop of family photos and videos was stolen from a Maidstone hotel car park the evening before the funeral took place.
Kent Police is asking anyone who saw anything, or who has dashcam or CCTV footage, to come forward. The force set out the details in an appeal on its website on Friday 2 October.
What the police say happened
- A blue Ford Fiesta Titanium was reported missing from the car park of the Mercure Maidstone Great Danes Hotel on Ashford Road.
- The car is believed to have been taken between 6pm and 9.45pm on Wednesday 30 September.
- Inside were items for a funeral, including clothes and a laptop holding sentimental photos and videos.
- Officers have been making enquiries, including reviewing the CCTV available, and an investigation is under way.
The force has not reported any arrest.
The hotel sits on the A20 beside the roundabout at Eyhorne Street, Hollingbourne, about four miles east of Maidstone town centre and close to junction 8 of the M20.
Sergeant Rachel Patton said those responsible “targeted a bereft pensioner, taking with them not only their means of transport but treasured memories of a loved one.”
The appeal
If you saw anyone acting suspiciously around the hotel that Wednesday evening, call the west Kent appeals line on 01622 604100 and quote reference 30-1717.
The force is also asking two groups to check their footage:
- residents nearby with private CCTV
- drivers with a dashcam who were in the area between 6pm and 9.45pm
The laptop matters as much as the car here. If you are offered a second-hand laptop, or see one listed for sale locally, with personal photos still on it, that is worth a call to the same number.
How common is vehicle crime around the hotel?
We checked the published street-level figures on police.uk for the area within a mile of the hotel. That takes in Eyhorne Street, the M20 junction and the lanes around them.
Police recorded 33 vehicle crimes there in the twelve months from September 2025 to August 2026. The category covers thefts of vehicles and thefts from them.
- The busiest months were October 2025 and February 2026, with five each.
- September 2025 and May 2026 recorded none.
- August 2026, the latest month published, recorded three.
- Police.uk maps each offence to the nearest street or landmark to protect privacy. Most of these appear “on or near Musket Lane” or “on or near Penfold Hill”, which does not mean they happened on those roads.
The monthly counts come from the police.uk open data (August 2026 query). For comparison, the same one-mile check around Fremlin Walk car park in the town centre found 154 vehicle crimes in a year, as we reported in our story on the Fremlin Walk moped arrests. September’s figures, covering this theft, will not be published until later in the autumn.
What it means for you
- If you were at or near the hotel on the evening of Wednesday 30 September, think back to anyone hanging around the car park, and call 01622 604100 quoting 30-1717.
- If you have a dashcam and drove along the A20 near the Hollingbourne roundabout between 6pm and 9.45pm that night, check the footage before it records over.
- If you leave a car in a hotel or station car park overnight, keep anything you cannot replace out of it. Insurance can replace a car and a laptop; it cannot replace what was on the laptop.
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